Chapter 571: The pressure of raising a family is great
As early as when he learned that the pseudo-Tang traitor army entered Jingzhou, Tan Rong had already sensed something was wrong and saw the danger. This danger was not only that he could not defeat the pseudo-Tang traitor army in Xingquan Mansion, but that it was extremely dangerous.
It is possible that our own side will be trapped in a siege without food.
So at that time, he immediately sent Hong Linquan back to Jingzhou to try to reopen the grain road. If Hong Linquan and his troops could cooperate with the Jingzhou defenders to defeat the puppet Tang rebel army and reopen the grain road, everything would be fine.
He is still under control and has a huge advantage over his own side. He is even sure to continue to eat the pseudo-Tang rebel army in Xingquan Mansion.
However, as a qualified general, he could not place his hopes on optimism. On the contrary, he prepared for the worst: if Hong Lin was unable to open up the food channel, then he would change his battle plan.
The plan was to give up the attack on Xingquan Prefecture, and go north to Zhenyuan Prefecture in Guizhou, and join the more than 10,000 Ming troops there in Chenzhou Prefecture in Huguang.
There are still a large number of Ming troops in Zhenyuan Prefecture and Chenzhou Prefecture. As long as you go there, you can not only pick out the encirclement, but also obtain food.
Of course, he would also need food when heading north. Even if it was only a journey of a few days, he still needed to be prepared.
For this reason, measures to save food actually started when Hong Linquan led his army to leave. At the same time, he also sent a large number of troops to search for food in various parts of Xingquan Prefecture. As for the food in the hands of local people, he
Whether he will starve to death after robbing everything is not something he should consider.
When officers and soldiers fight, they will never starve themselves for the sake of the people!
It is a pity that the people here in Xingquan Mansion have become accustomed to war in the past two years, and they are even more aware of the virtues of the Ming Dynasty's officers and soldiers. Therefore, when the officers and soldiers arrive, basically the whole village flees. This person
They all ran away, and naturally the food was taken with them.
In addition, time was tight, so even though he sent many troops to the surrounding villages to collect food, the results were not great.
But even if the food collected is not much, there is still some. Coupled with the food stored in the army, saving a little can still barely last half a month.
This was originally just his preparatory measure, but after he learned a few days ago that the reconnaissance cavalry reported that all Hong Lin's troops were intercepted at the foot of Jingzhou City, and that nearly ten thousand Jingzhou defenders collapsed, he realized that something was wrong.
At that time, although Hong Linquan gritted his teeth and continued to attack Jingzhou City, Tan Rong, who was in Xingquan Mansion, had already judged that the grain road was completely impossible to open.
Because even if Hong Linquan storms into Jingzhou City, it will be difficult to transport food outside. At most, he can only protect himself.
In this case, it only took Tan Rong half an hour to make the choice to retreat with the entire army!
Naturally, we cannot retreat to Jingzhou foolishly. If we are to retreat to Jingzhou, if we are intercepted by the puppet Tang rebel army, it will not take more than a few days. If we are intercepted for only three to five days, then the whole army will be destroyed.
It would collapse due to lack of food, so his retreat direction was to go north, to Zhenyuan Prefecture and Chenzhou Prefecture.
Although this road is longer, at least there are no thieves blocking the road. If you run faster, you can escape with your current food reserves.
Based on this, Tan Rong did not even dare to attack Xingquan Mansion in the end. He had already retreated with the main force of his direct lineage that day, and other troops also began to retreat the next day.
They also set up a fascination formation before retreating, and at the same time did not spread the news of the retreat. Even other senior generals did not tell them, and just asked them to follow orders.
In addition, thousands of old and young weak troops were left behind, pretending that the army was still there, and telling the troops that he, Tan Rong, was not retreating, but was going to lead his army to attack the puppet Tang rebel army in Jingzhou.
, re-open the food channel, if you hold on for a few days, I will be able to come back with food soon.
The thousands of people who stayed behind had no idea that Tan Rong led his troops to the east for a long time and then headed north.
No doubt they were sold!
Tan Rong felt no psychological burden at all from selling these thousands of old, young and weak friendly troops. Selling them not only covered his retreat, but also saved a lot of food.
After fleeing north, he led the army and ran all the way, throwing away whatever baggage he could, and fled all the way north. Finally, he escaped from the sad ghost place of Xingquan Mansion.
When he contacted the Ming army from Zhenyuan Prefecture and Chenzhou Prefecture, he immediately sent a battle report to the supervisor Zhang Yue. This time, he did not hide much, but honestly said that he had successfully led the army to success.
The breakout, well, the losses during the breakout were a bit heavy, four to five thousand people were lost, and all the heavy ordnance, such as the Folan cannon, was lost.
Please ask Mr. Zhang to allocate a batch of ordnance and food as soon as possible!
He was able to be entrusted with the important task of being the commander of the 50,000-strong army by Zhang Yue, so he was naturally trusted by Zhang Yue. When Zhang Yue received his letter, he had just received the battle report of Hong Linquan's disastrous defeat.
So instead of blaming Tan Rong for escaping with the army, he was deeply gratified. How could he not be gratified? If Tan Rong had not decisively retreated a few days in advance, he would have been completely surrounded by Xingquan Mansion by now.
Although we are now losing troops and generals, we have managed to save about 30,000 people.
Tan Rong ran away and successfully picked out the encirclement of Xingquan Mansion with his main force. This meant that the entire territory of Xingquan Mansion was once again recovered by the Tang Dynasty King's Army.
The next stage of the war will most likely start in the Zhenyuan Prefecture and Chenzhou Prefecture.
At the same time, there is another important front, that is in the Jingzhou area. The Fourth Army has not yet captured Jingzhou. Chen Keqiao hesitated slightly after learning that the siege of Xingquan Mansion had been lifted and the Ming army fled north.
Finally, they gave up their plan to continue to attack Jingzhou by force.
Instead, a small number of troops were left to monitor the Ming army in Jingzhou City, while the main force began to advance westward and northward to capture the city and seize territory.
If a thoughtful person sees Chen Keqiao's deployment, he will find that this is another tactic of encircling a point to attract reinforcements. He gave up the storming of a strong city like Jingzhou and tried to attack the Huguang reinforcements coming from the hinterland of Huguang, thereby exerting his own strength.
The best field combat ability!
Now, it’s time to see if the Ming army will be fooled!
Unfortunately, Zhang Yue was more decisive and resolute than Chen Keqiao imagined. He just sent an envoy to Jingzhou City to tell the defenders in the city that the Governor was raising troops to rescue Jingzhou.
He had to hold on no matter what, and at the same time, he secretly ordered a few of his close relatives that once the city was defeated, the food in Jingzhou city must not be left to the puppet Tang rebels, and all must be burned!
But in fact, Zhang Yue has already begun to deploy troops and generals to prepare to build a second line of defense to intercept the puppet Tang rebels' northward march. He sent troops to rescue Jingzhou. What a joke, there are still nearly ten thousand puppet Tang rebels wandering there.
No matter how stupid Zhang Yue is, he knows that these bandits are waiting for him to send reinforcements to his door.
Under such circumstances, there is no hope of rescuing Jingzhou unless he gathers 30,000 to 50,000 men, but he will not be able to raise so many troops in the southwest of Huguang in a short while.
Huguang, a huge country, does not only have one front line in the southwest. Due west is the western part of Huguang, due south is the southern part of Huguang, and Shaozhou Prefecture in Guangdong are all front lines. Troops are needed everywhere. How can he mobilize troops?
Go rescue Jingzhou!
Some time ago, he had received news that the troops of the puppet Tang rebel army had appeared under the city of Shaozhou. As for Yingde and Qingyuan in the south, they had already been completely lost.
In terms of strategic position, ten Jingzhous are not as good as one Shaozhou!
Fortunately, it is the rainy season now, so many of the guns and artillery of the Puppet Tang rebels cannot be used. In addition, Shaozhou is an important military pass. The city is tall and thick, and the military strength is barely adequate, so it is not like other cities in central and western Guangdong.
It will be destroyed in one attack.
Of course, what's more important is that now all the pseudo-Tang rebels in Guangdong have been dragged into Guangzhou. The number of pseudo-Tang rebels who have come to Shaozhou Prefecture is only a few thousand, and there are not many real thieves.
Otherwise, Shaozhou would have been lost long ago.
Zhang Yue, who is in Changsha, has now begun to follow Song Zhiwen's advice. It is not advisable to counterattack the puppet Tang rebels. The best way now is to defend the city and trap the puppet Tang rebels to death in Guizhou.
On the front line of Guangdong and Guangxi, when the war becomes protracted, the puppet Tang rebel army will collapse sooner or later!
Because the Ming Dynasty had such a large territory, its population and various resources were incomparable to those of the Puppet Tang bandit army. If they put all their effort into consumption, the Ming Dynasty would surely win.
In order to raise military expenditures to suppress the puppet Tang bandits, and the puppet Tang bandits were indeed too powerful, the imperial court had allocated more than 1.5 million taels of silver to the military expenditures for suppressing the bandits, and this was only
Just the beginning.
Well, what's interesting is that of the more than 1.5 million military expenditures, only 300,000 taels came out of the national treasury, and the remaining 1.2 million were allocated by Emperor Zhengde from the inner treasury!
In other words, Emperor Zhengde used his private money to support the army in fighting the war. As for the national treasury, after spending these 300,000, he could starve to death.
What's more interesting is that the more than one million taels of silver is just a figure provided by the imperial court, but it definitely does not mean that it is a figure that Zhang Yue can get, let alone a figure that many soldiers can get.
In fact, before this money left the capital, it was already missing at least three hundred thousand taels of silver!
As the money gradually went south, it became less and less. By the time it was in Zhang Yue's hands, there was actually less than 700,000 left.
You want to ask where the money went? Nonsense, this needs to be asked. Naturally it went into the pockets of the adults. Otherwise, how would people support a family? It is very stressful to support dozens of wives.